Descent
by MauMaster
Summary: When gravity does nothing but pull you down, the only choice you have is to delve deeper into insanity. AU, fifth year, 4 parts.
1. the Muggle

**Title: **Descent

**Summary: **_When gravity does nothing but pull you down, the only choice you have is to delve deeper into insanity. AU, fifth year, 4 parts._

**_Chapter One: _**The Potter Boy

**Notes: ***nervously peeks head in* Hello, fellow Potter fans/fanatics! Wow, I haven't checked into this fandom in ages. Most of my stuff turns out mediocre for it. Anyhow, since November is Nation Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), I've decided to participate in another writing related month celebration that I recently made up - Personal Fanfic Posting Month (PerFaPoMo). I have so many fics that I've written, but haven't posted. In fact, this was finished years ago and I started it a little bit after DH came out. This is a four part, ansgty fic inspired by the below quote in OoTP. I'd get tissues ready, just because I cried while writing it. Each part will happen not quite simultaneously, but around the same time. I have 4 different people I'm centering on, so that's one per chapter. I hope you find this piece... Hm. I wouldn't say enjoyable, but well written, at least.

**WARNING: Character deaths. This goes throughout the fic, so I'm saying it now. There are several.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own HP. The wonderful JKR does. **

* * *

**Chapter 10, OotP, pg 361, US Hardcover Edition**

**"And as for Potter… My father says it's a matter of time before the Ministry has him carted off the St. Mungo's… apparently they've got a special ward for people whose brains have been addled by magic…"**

**-Draco Malfoy**

* * *

1. The Muggle

"Do you know what happened to the Dursleys' nephew?"

"The Potter boy? I heard he was sent to a mental institution."

This conversation was common around Privet Drive. Newcomers were welcomed with terrifying stories about the boy that left one summer and only returned once a year. After a while, he didn't come back at all. Some said he died. Some said he was in jail. Others said he was crazy. The Dursleys refused to comment after the summer he turned twelve. At that point, he was attending a school for juvenile delinquents.

The Potter boy was something of a legend around Privet Drive, yet something of a joke. If somebody was absent from school for an extended period of time, they were "doing a Potter." If somebody was odd or disliked, we told them all about "Harry Hunting," as his cousin used to called it. If somebody wore glasses, we didn't call them four-eyes – no, we called them Harry Potter, the worst insult of all.

I grew up with Harry Potter. We were classmates for all of my childhood. He lived just a few houses down the block. He was that weird kid with glasses and baggy clothes, the one that looked as if a feather could knock him over. Of course, it took a bit more than that – we all had to admit that he was fast.

He never had a friend – not one. The first words to a new student would run along the lines of "Watch out for Harry Potter. He's a freak. Nobody likes him." That was enough to convince a frightened new kid not to befriend the one person desperate as they were to not be alone.

He was supposed to attend Stonewall High with me. I remember that summer well. I had been complaining all summer because my friends were all being sent off to these fancy schools while I got to attend Stonewall with the boring gray uniforms. When they promised to write, I encouraged them with the threat that I would talk to Potter. I told them that if they didn't write, I would tell him that they wanted to be friends with him. That convinced them pretty quickly.

But on the first day of school, he never showed up. Whispers spread among the classes. Where had he gone? Were we really free of the freak or was he just late? Was he skipping school? But when the teacher did roll call, Harry's name never came up, not in any class.

This was when the Harry Potter jokes began. He wasn't there to hear them, right? It wouldn't have stopped us if he could. Harry Potter was weird beyond belief and best of all, _he was gone!_

That fantasy was brought to an abrupt end during summer break. I had been sprawled out with my friends on the front lawn, giggling about their stories of school and our new crushes. I had been in the middle of wheedling out the story of my best friend's first kiss when the Dursleys drove up the street.

They pulled into their driveway and four people got out. I blinked – four? A boy, around my age, with messy black hair, was reaching into the trunk of the car and pulling out a large chest. Beside him was a cage with an owl. My mouth dropped open when I realized who this was.

Harry Potter had returned. He certainly had changed over the year. No longer was he scrawny little boy. Yes, he was still rather small, but he had filled out a bit and looked more his age. His hair had grown just as messy as ever, but he kept it over his forehead now, so it looked slightly less unkempt, not like a lawn that was parted. In fact, it looked perfectly unkempt. He had gained confidence over the year. His stance was apparent in that. Most surprising of all, he was smiling. I had never seen Harry Potter smile, not once.

Mr. Dursley yanked the trunk out of his nephew's hands and grabbed the cage roughly. The owl screeched and Mr. Dursley turned purple before shoving it into Harry's arms. The boy rushed into the house quickly, the others following. Not one of them noticed me watching.

I saw him a few times over the summer, mostly doing work around the house. He never smiled to the extent as he had that first day, but sly grins were common, especially when directed towards Dudley. They seemed to talk to each other, but these encounters were followed by screams of the fat boy for his mother.

Now, don't get me wrong! I'm not a stalker. Yes, I watched him. All of the neighborhood kids were interested in him. It's hard to ignore something so prominent, like the transformation of a freak. I was tempted to go over and say hi, just to see if he would know who I was. But I was frightened. Things tended to go wrong around him. Perhaps he was dangerous – a criminal, like the stories suggested.

One day, there were bars on his window. Three days later, they were gone – and so was the window itself. Glass lay in the Dursleys' yard and I was certain that Harry Potter wasn't coming back any time soon.

The year passed quite peacefully. I lost contact with some friends, gained new friends. I got my first kiss and my first boyfriend, along with my first breakup. My best friend had ditched me for some girl that I hated. Everything had changed, but there was one thing I was counting on to be certain. Harry Potter would not be back.

I was wrong. One morning, he was there, and slinking around the neighborhood with no apparent purpose. He seemed to be just trying to avoid home. I avoided him and he avoided me – all was good. Harry seemed preoccupied anyhow.

He disappeared again, in August. I heard rumors of where he attended – the Dursleys called the school St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys. I made a mental note not to go near him.

He returned yet again the next year. By now, this was no surprise. We expected it, in fact. We spent ages concocting theories of what odd thing he would do this summer. This time, we staged a water fight every afternoon, in hope to get a glimpse of the boy arriving.

It worked. The car drove up the street just as I got hit in the face with a water balloon from my brother. After briefly smashing another on his head, we paused the game just for the purpose of gawking.

Harry Potter got out of the car and wheeled his trunk into the house himself, a large difference from two summers ago. I was fourteen and dying with curiosity of this boy. His owl, a pet, I had determined, hooted indignantly as he left her outside in the boiling sun.

"Shush, Hedwig," Harry said out loud as he emerged from the house again. "I wasn't going to leave you out here. Hey, are you up for delivering a letter to Serious? He wanted me to write when I got home." He sent a sly smirk over at his relatives, who had frozen. Who was Serious? Or was it Sirius? And why would his bird matter in that? Perhaps Sirius/Serious was an imaginary friend. Who would talk to the freak anyways?

However, I couldn't help but want to talk to him. It was an agreement among the neighborhood kids. We would all say hi at least once over the summer. We wanted to know his reaction. Would he glare? Would he say hello back? We never found out for, the next day, Dudley threatened to beat up anyone who went near his cousin without his consent.

Needless to say, we obliged.

It didn't stop us from watching, from spying. He had changed. No longer did he do housework all day or sulk around. Sometimes he didn't leave the house at all. Others he walked around at the park or up and down the street. I caught him sitting in the middle of the lawn once or twice, papers that looked like letters scattered around him as he pushed up his glasses and wrote scrawled responses on thick, yellowed paper.

If he had more confidence when we were twelve, it had multiplied several times by the time we were fourteen. He didn't cower when passing Dudley and his gang in the streets. He carried an odd stick in his back pocket. You could barely see it, making just a thin lump under his shirt, which was not as big and baggy as it had been a few years ago. He was still wearing the same clothes from when he was ten, which were the same ones from when he was eight. He never seemed to be able to grow into them. Either way, Harry had grown taller, much taller, and he had _muscles_ now! Scrawny freak, no more!

The mail man went up to the door one day with a letter. It spread quickly. The letter was _covered_ in stamps. Not one inch was free of them! It had been for Harry.

He was gone a few days later. We never saw him leave the house, but we didn't see him again, so we knew he was gone. That happened a lot with him.

The last time I saw Harry Potter was the following summer. The air was hot and thick. I had stayed inside on the phone most of the time, wiping the sweat from my forehead. I was dying for freedom from house, freedom I had denied myself for weeks. I decided to take a walk as evening fell.

"Yeah, Big D!" I heard chanted from around the corner. "Isn't that your cousin?"

I had forgotten that Harry had come back for the summer. I rushed around the block, hoping to get a glimpse of the mysterious boy.

He had changed once again, but this change was not for the better as the others had been.

His eyes were sunken and they had deep bags beneath them. He was not smiling. In fact, his mouth was set into a firm frown, a permanent looking one. His hair fell in his eyes and he didn't bother to brush it away. And there was that weird stick in his pocket, his fingers twitching towards it as he spotted the crowd of boys.

"Leave him alone," Dudley mumbled to his friends and I crinkled my brow in surprise. Leave him alone? What happened to Dudley, the leader in our hate towards Harry Potter? We all knew he was doing drugs and such, but to leave his cousin alone? That was odd, even for him.

Obviously, his friends thought the same thing. They stared in disbelief before walking ahead, towards Potter. I walked slowly, slower than Harry, hoping that I wouldn't reach a corner any time soon and have to leave the scene. Dudley, realizing that his groupies would not listen to him now, pushed in front of them, deciding to be the one to face his cousin. Harry did not back down like he used to. In fact, he stepped forward, a defiant expression on his face.

"What do you want, Dudley?" he asked and my eyes widened in surprise. I had not heard his voice since we were thirteen and for some reason, I expected it to be the same. But, no, it was deeper now, and not as happy. It sounded depressed, possibly. Dull.

"Brave, are you?" Piers, one of Dudley's friends, taunted. "You weren't like that last time we beat you up."

"You're not beating me up." Harry's voice lingered on annoyance and mock surprise. "Are you, Dudley? I'll tell your mum."

"Tattletale, are you?" one of them yelled.

"No, no, I'm not. Perhaps I ought to take care of it myself. I learned some pretty cool things in school."

"What, crazy school?"

Harry's head cocked sideways, and he smiled. It wasn't genuine, though. It was a smile that reminded me of the grin Dudley would give his victims. "Maybe. That's what a lot of people call it. But either way, I learn cool things. Want a demonstration? I can do magic now."

Dudley's face went pale. "Y-you're not allowed to talk about that stuff!"

"I'm not?" Harry's voice was shocked, but I knew that he was aware of the supposed fact. "Why not?"

"They'll expel you, won't they?" Dudley's voice cracked and his hands shook. Harry's smile grew.

"How do you know I'm even going back?"

"I'll tell Dad! I'll tell him you were talking about m-m-m - your school!"

I had stopped moving completely by now, watching the scene in terror. Despite the fact that Harry gotten taller and probably stronger, there was no doubt that they would pound him into a pulp.

"Oh." Harry stopped talking and stuck his hands in his pockets, watching the pebbles on the ground. "In that case… BOO!" He looked up suddenly and spread out his arms. Dudley held back a squeal and ran towards his house, his friends following closely behind. Harry watched them, his grin fading. I walked closer. Perhaps, just this once, I could say hello. Perhaps I would. Perhaps I wouldn't.

He spotted me and our eyes connected. His eyes were green, I noticed. They were a brilliant green, so green that I couldn't help but look at them.

"Hi," I greeted quietly.

"Did you see that whole thing?' he asked worriedly. I nodded, biting my lip.

He sighed. "Uncle Vernon is going to _kill_ me when Dudley tells him. And if it gets around… I'm never going to see light again. And the Weasleys can't take their car to save me again…" He trailed off, thinking. "Maybe I could get Hermione to come down here. It doesn't make a difference, I guess. Haven't gotten any letters from them all summer."

I cleared my throat. He seemed to have forgotten me, for he jumped.

"Sorry," he apologized. "I haven't had someone to actually talk to since school let out. I'm used to seeing the words on paper now."

"It's alright. Where do you go to school?" Here I was, doing what no other had done before! Talking to Harry Potter! Having a conversation with the freak!

His mouth tightened and he hesitated before replying. "St. Brutus's. Ever heard of it?"

"A bit from your family."

He nodded and stared off into the setting sun. "I figured." He didn't say anything and an uncomfortable silence filled the street.

"They say you're crazy," I blurted and clapped my hand over my mouth instantly. He turned his head slowly and our eyes met.

"They do?" His voice was even – like the calm before the storm.

"Yes," I whispered. "Either that or a criminal. Or future criminal. Are you?"

"A criminal? Maybe. I've got a pretty bad detention record," he laughed. "And a habit for getting into trouble. But there've been worse. Much, much worse. Crazy? I don't think so."

"What do you mean, worse?"

He didn't break his gaze and I found that neither could I.

"I saw a classmate be killed in June. Right in front of me. How's that for worse? Dudley says I talk in my sleep about it and it's been haunting me for weeks. I didn't know the guy very well, but we had helped each other out in some… er, circumstances. It doesn't help that half of the school thinks I killed him."

"Why would they think that?" I breathed. A student had _died_ at his school? I knew it happened, but I never knew someone who had witnessed it.

"I was the only witness. It couldn't help that we both liked the same girl – his girlfriend." Harry laughed, a bitter laugh. "That'll be a nice scene, trying to talk to her again. I wonder if she believes me." His voice trailed off and so did his eyes. They were looking at the ground. The light around us grew darker and night fell.

"I'm sorry," I whispered quietly. Maybe this whole encounter had been a bad idea…

"It's nothing. Really. I'm used to that sort of stuff, you know?" _No,_ I wanted to say. _No, I don't know_. "I've lived here all my life. My parents died when I was little, but you probably know that. Unless Dudley tried to spread this story about how they abandoned me on the doorstep, of course." I could have sworn him mutter "half true" under his breath. His tone was light and chatty, despite the dark topic we had just touched on.

"You mentioned magic before," I realized.

"Magic tricks, stupid things. Illusions, card tricks… that sort of stuff. My friend has twin brothers. They're pranksters and have taught me a few things. I managed to convince Dudley that I could turn him into a frog if I wanted to." Harry's words slid smoothly off his tongue, so smoothly that I thought he might be lying. But I brushed it off. There was no such thing as _real_ magic and even if there had been, Harry Potter would not be the type.

We had been walking without noticing it, unconsciously towards our homes. We were two from my house, three from his. The front door of the Dursleys' was pried open as we came into view.

"GET IN HERE, BOY!"

Harry cringed.

"Sorry to dump that all on you," he said quickly, glancing over his shoulder at his angry uncle. "I didn't mean to, it's just that my friends have been on their tiptoes around me lately." _They're not the only ones_, I thought. "They're afraid I'm going to blow up and start confessing my love for my dead classmate or something." He snorted. "Well, I think Ron is, at least. They said I changed over the end of school and they just didn't want to upset me. I think they're attempting to ditch me before they get killed, too. Or maybe they think I'm next and don't want to get closer. Even Sirius hasn't been writing much… Well, either way, I shouldn't have bothered you with that stuff."

"It's fine," I assured the boy who, until recently, had been a loner, a freak, with no friends and no life. He hadn't seemed real – he was just a _thing_ that lived near me. Like the rocks that led the way to my door. They're there, what else matters? I never thought about how they got there, where they were from, where they've been… I never thought that they could have an interesting story to tell.

"BOY, I SAID GET IN HERE!"

"YOU LISTEN TO YOUR UNCLE, BOY!"

Harry cringed again and I gave him an encouraging smile.

"Oh, one more thing – d'you mind not spreading the fact that I have a life around to everyone else around here? It'll keep me out of trouble and it'll be a lot easier to survive the next few weeks if I'm not locked in my room." I nodded, acknowledging his request and he grinned, a real grin this time. "Thanks."

"RUDDY OWL!" his uncle shouted and Harry spun around and raced towards the house without a glance back. "Get it off me!"

"Pig!" I heard him yell from a distance. "Stop it, Pig!"

The door of Number 4 Privet Drive slammed shut and I was alone in the streets.

* * *

Harry Potter disappeared soon after that. I saw him in the streets for a few weeks more, but as usual, he left mysteriously. I waited anxiously for summer break, when he would return. I had thought it through and figured that, odd as he was, he didn't seem so bad. Maybe I could make up for my behavior so long ago and be friends. But Dudley came back, and Harry was nowhere to be seen.

When I asked about his whereabouts, people answered with the usual, "I don't know. Why do you care?"

He had said, "I think they're attempting to ditch me before they get killed, too. Or maybe they think I'm next and don't want to get closer." Did he mean this seriously, or as a joke? Had he been next? Had he been killed? The Dursleys didn't seem to care, if that was the case. They went about their regular lives.

My life went on, too. I managed to forget about that frightful conversation with the boy. But my view of him was never quite the same. I tuned out taunts towards his name, yet kept true to our agreement. I got married, had children, and had a career. My life was good. I thought of Harry Potter rarely, only in times of question, with questions of life and choices accompanying my troubled thoughts.

I visited my children's school for parent-teacher conferences many years later. We met with their teacher, and then their guidance counselor.

"Come on in," the counselor greeted when I knocked on the door. It was a male voice, which seemed sort of odd. I had never had a male guidance counselor. When I swung open the door, my mouth dropped.

It was Dudley Dursley. He was much slimmer, and much more mature looking. He looked sort of… nice. Sort of comforting. I was surprised.

"Dudley? Dudley _Dursley?_" He smiled at me.

"You grew up on Privet Drive?" he asked, chuckling a bit. I nodded. "I figured. I can't remember you, to be quite honest."

"You didn't remember anyone who you didn't beat up."

Dudley nodded. "So I'm guessing I never beat you up."

"Yes, that's a good guess."

After that, we had the usual conference. I asked a bit about my children, for I knew that my son had been in the office for fighting a few weeks ago.

"Ah, yes, I suggested that he sign up for the boxing team. They help with the pent up anger," Dudley explained. "I run it after school, actually."

We shook hands and I stood to leave. At the door, I couldn't help but pause.

"Dudley?"

"Yes?"

"What happened to Harry?"

"My cousin?" Dudley sat up a bit straighter. His body was stiff.

"Yes. Him. What happened to him?"

Dudley sighed and twiddled a pen in his hands. "He was sent to a mental institution when we were fifteen – they sent him in the middle of the school year. He never came back after that. They kept him in there for the rest of his life. I visited him when we were nineteen. He looked bad, like he was being tortured or something. At times I thought… well, I don't know. Maybe they did... Things weren't going very well in the hospital, from what I understand, and patients were being mistreated. But there's nothing to be done now, right?"

"The rest of his life? But does that mean…?"

Dudley nodded. "He died when he was twenty. I don't know what exactly happened. One of his friends said he was murdered, but the official records say that he starved himself to death. Or perhaps he had flung himself out the window… I can't remember. But the people that came to tell us about it told us he committed suicide." Dudley shrugged.

"So which is true?"

"I don't know. All of his friends died in an accident."

"Oh."

My throat went dry. I could only feel pity for the former bully, who would never be able to mend the bonds with his cousin. Maybe that was why he chose this job – to make up for it.

I rushed out of there as quickly as I could.

* * *

Now, when I meet with old friends, we talk about our teenage years. One topic comes up every time.

"Hey, do you know what happened to the Dursleys' nephew?" one would ask.

"The Potter boy?" I would respond, pretending not to know much more than they. "I heard he was sent to a mental institution."

They would nod and make comments such as "that was expected" and "he always did seem crazy." I would nod along and smile and laugh as we remembered the old days, when we were kids and he was just a weird classmate that nobody liked.

Just how did he die? Did he really kill himself? Or was he murdered like his classmate that he had mentioned?

When did he go insane? Was he already crazy when I spoke to him that summer night? Or was he just beginning to lose his mind, only to delve deeper and deeper into the pits of madness? Could I have helped him that one night? Perhaps if I offered friendship, or even just my name, he would not have gone mad.

Perhaps if someone had bothered to talk to him when we were younger instead of watch in amusement, or in the teenage years, when we observed with shock and fear, he would have turned out okay.

But it's too late to stop his descent now.

* * *

Note: Will the nameless Muggle's questions be answered in the next 3 chapters? Will we ever find out what happened to Harry? Maybe. Maybe not. Actually, I can't remember, I haven't read the whole story again yet. Feedback is always welcome. Next chapter is Arthur Weasley, it should be out on the 11th or 12th (My profile says 12th, but I may have to do an early posting). Thanks for reading!

Excerpt from Arthur Weasley's "Headlines":

_"What did you do to Gilderoy Lockhart?" I questioned suspiciously. He laughed._

_"I didn't give him any damage!" he insisted. "At least not lasting damage."_

_"What did you do?" I repeated._


	2. Arthur Weasley

**Title: **Descent

**Chapter 2: **Arthur Weasley

**Notes: **Um. Sorry this is late? Without further ado, the next chapter (It broke my heart to write this. Get tissues)/

**Disclaimer: I don't own HP**

* * *

Headlines are what capture the eye.

Bold ones, big ones, ones that seem important or interesting – those are the stories you read in the newspaper. I read the newspaper every day, without fail. The articles pained me often, especially in recent times, but I read them nevertheless. I read every single one.

This was true, even as I sat on a cot in St. Mungo's, slowly creeping towards my death. I flipped the page once. Twice. Three times. I flipped back to the beginning again. I forced myself to stare at the picture of my friend, as he is shoved roughly by the Aurors and Werewolf Capture Unit. I forced myself to stare at the solemn picture of Dumbledore being led to Azkaban. I forced myself to stare at the picture of the godfather of the boy that was as good as my son. I saw the pictures. I understood those, I understood the cold hard truths that lay beneath them. It's the words that I could not even begin to comprehend.

I sighed as I looked at the crazed Sirius Black, a picture that had been taken years ago. I had not seen his godson since summer and was anxious to know more about his fate. Did he have the same crazed look in his eyes? Were his eyes sunken and dull? Was he angry at us for not stopping it?

Perhaps he had always been insane. My family couldn't be a reliable source on that fact, could we? We were probably just as crazy as him.

Perhaps I should have noticed it when we first met. If he had gotten help at twelve, would he have been sane now, at fifteen? Of course, that's like asking if the snake intended to let me live. The answer was no.

I remembered him at twelve. He was a bright boy, I knew. He certainly got the worst of both worlds, but he took that in stride. He was brave, one of the bravest people I have ever met, at any age. He was loyal to his friends. He saved my baby, my only daughter.

Tears wet my eyes as I realized that I would never get to walk that girl down the aisle. Who was I kidding when I said that I might live? Who was I kidding when I said we all would? Danger lurked closer and our numbers were dropping. Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, our two best fighters for they had nothing to lose but their lives, were in prison, as was Dumbledore. Harry Potter was sitting in a hospital room just a few floors away. What hope did we have?

At thirteen, Harry had been an interesting character. I worried that he would find himself some sort of trouble to get into. I was even more worried that my youngest son would find his way in, as well. I worried well, for that's exactly what happened.

They found Sirius Black, not only an innocent convict, but a master prankster that deserved to be a legend. He would never be a legend. He would never clear his name. He was rotting in Azkaban now, without even bars. A solid metal door was at the entrance of his cell. No windows were available, so not even the tiniest morsel of light could creep through. Dementors were constantly present. He shared that six by six cell with Remus Lupin. It was a wonder that those two grown men fit. Despite the scrawny size Lupin had been when he began Hogwarts, he had grown to a full height of five eight. Sirius had always been tall, leading to his grand height of six three. He couldn't even lie down properly in his cell!

Harry amazed me as he grew older. Fourteen years old and practically on his own, no help needed to survive! Yet, Molly agonized over the teenager. She stuffed him with her hearty meals, she tucked him into bed (after he was asleep, for we knew he'd be mortified if he hadn't been), she cared for him in every way. During the Triwizard Tournament, he made us proud to be able to call him our surrogate son. I could see his glum expression when the champions went to see their families. He did not expect company. Watching his face light up as he caught sight of Molly and me will forever be recorded as one of the most amazing moments in my life.

No, he was not insane at the mere age of fourteen. It pained me that he was just fifteen now. What had forced him to change between then and now? It was only a few months! What could have changed him like it did?

But with a sinking heart, I knew. It was what we were fighting all along. The return of You-Know-Who. I had managed to weasel some information out of Ron, and I was aware of the nightmares that plagued the boy, barely more than a child. You-Know-Who's return and Cedric's death followed him everywhere.

I thought back to summer break, when he joined us at the headquarters. He had transformed over the weeks. He was no longer the same Harry Potter. This boy had dark bags under his eyes, and those eyes were no longer full of life. They flickered, yes, they flickered. They flickered all the time, but it was not the flicker of a firefly. It was the flicker of life that a dying bug endured, the uplifting hope only to crash down on them before they were finished. It was the flicker of the doomed. His expression had turned naturally grim, despite the façade he struggled to uphold.

I had brushed it off. I figured that he was just having a hard time, being a teenager. I was onto raising my sixth fifteen year old and this was a phase that all had gone through, even Ron. If only I had known…

The family had visited me in the morning. I had hugged them all tightly. I had ignored the screaming protests my arm made. I did not whimper. I did not make a sound. Not in front of my family. I would be brave for them. I would be strong. It was only when they left that I had sobbed for a Healer, asking for pain medication.

Percy came in the dead of night, without the knowledge of the others. He saw through my fibs. He knew I was gone. He whispered a strangled "Sorry" before rushing away, as if afraid he would burst into tears. I wanted him to, in some odd part of my brain. I wanted to hug him and tell him that everything would be alright and that I was proud of him, my one and only Percy. He wanted to as well, but could not find it in himself to let his pride disappear. It was a disadvantage of being Gryffindor. I did not tell the family. Why bother if they would only roll their eyes?

Ron's eyes looked haunted and scared, before he even caught sight of me. According to Molly, he had walked around the hospital before coming in to see me. I was terrified to ask what he had seen.

Ginny was tearful as she squeezed my hand. I reassured her over and over again. I told her that I would not die. I told her that I would live and that she would walk down the aisle in a few years and that I would hold my grandchildren and babysit them when her and her husband needed a weekend off (but not for a _long_ time, I reminded my baby girl). And you know what I found out when I told her these things? I'm a pretty good liar.

Death was closing in on me. No matter how fast they fed me Blood Replenishing Potions, I bled faster. I laid the newspaper beside me. I would not spend my last few hours watching pictures of those who were bound to join me soon.

Should I write my will? I wondered. But what was the point in that? I had nothing to give to my children, nothing that I could guarantee would stay theirs for very long. Once I was gone, they would need to do something to afford the basic means. My heart clenched.

Would they separate the children from Molly? Would they separate the children from each other? Bill, Charlie, and – it hurt to think the name – Percy were all of age and could support themselves, if needed.

George and Fred would soon move out. I knew of their secret plans to form a joke shop, and profits were going well. They had told me this in confidence and it took all my effort to keep from telling Molly. Their joke shop would be a true symbol of the kindness of Harry Potter. They had told me about the money, as well. They came clean, for the first time in their lives. They would be fine.

Ron and Ginny were a problem, as was Harry. I didn't want my biological children to be apart, but what family would take in two teenagers so close in age? Especially those two! Ron, who found trouble no matter where he was, and Ginny, who learned pranking from her brothers, were not an ideal pair! What would happen to them? Where would they go? Would they be safe, or simply handed over to You-Know-Who when he takes reign? As for Harry, what would happen when he has no one to depend on, no one to count as his family? I was certain of his fate when You-Know-Who wins. Death. Immediate and painless or long and excruciating, I did not know, but I knew it would be his end.

_Not_ _when_, I corrected myself, though I knew I was being untruthful. _If. Just if._

There was nothing I could leave my children except the knowledge that I loved them, I concluded. So, I reached for a quill and parchment with my good hand and began to write my goodbye.

* * *

My task was a painful one, both emotionally and physically. My arm ached and did not want to go on. My heart pounded and just wanted to be done with its work. But I knew I could not go. Not yet. I had one child left to see.

I hung on for three more days. Three more days, I was able to cling onto life, in desperation, to see my last son. By the second day, I had given up hope and instead of brooding, I wrote his personal letter, my goodbye to him, just as I had done for all the others. I didn't let one thought go unwritten as I said goodbye to them all. I worked on them from the early hours of morning to the stroke of midnight.

I took time to read the newspaper, as I did every day. I did not intend to stop – not now, not ever. The articles resumed their usual tone, the mocking of Harry Potter. There was a change, now. Now they mocked not only him, but Albus Dumbledore, Remus Lupin, and Sirius Black. My blood would boil as my eyes read every word. I didn't let them miss a thing.

I spent my last evening doing something I enjoyed. I refused to spend my last living hours thinking about doom and gloom. I opened my Sears magazine and hummed a sad little tune as I looked at pictures of those fascinating machines such as miniwaves and fellyphones.

I did not expect for the boy who led me to understand rubber ducks to be standing at the foot of my bed when I set the catalogue on my lap.

"Arg!" I yelped, and my arm throbbed. I was weak and not in the condition to be scared like that! I looked up and Harry Potter was staring at me with a solemn expression.

"You're going to die," he stated in a dull, monotonous voice. "The snake bite is making you bleed to death and you're going to die." It wasn't a question. It was an acknowledgement.

"Yes. I am." The admittance wasn't hard. It was the believing that I found difficult. Harry's frowned and I took the time to observe my honorary son.

His eyes were sunken, reminding me of the prisoners of Azkaban. He was skinny, skinnier than he had ever been before. His messy hair was flat and clean – it didn't look right. He looked more like a man who had spent years in Azkaban than a teenager that had spent weeks in St. Mungo's. His skin was pale as paper. It looked unmarked, unscarred besides his forehead – a good thing, right? It meant he was being treated right. My eyes drifted to his arm, where I knew there was a long cut from the Triwizard Tournament. He followed my gaze.

"It's gone," he whispered softly, trying to avoid frightening me again. "The scar on my arm is gone. They took it away. They didn't want proof of… of that night. They took it away, along with the words Umbridge made me carve into my hand. They want to make my stories untraceable. Nobody believes me, now."

Our eyes met and I realized with horror that the flicker in his eyes was not a flicker of happiness, nor a flicker of doom. They simply held nothing but the green orbs that seemed to not see. They were glazed over, dull. Nonetheless, they stared at me with fright, as if the last hope he had might slip away.

"I believe you," I responded. "You know that. We all do." Harry pursed his lips.

"Percy doesn't. He told Ron to ditch me."

"And what did Ron do?" I asked.

The sides of his mouth tugged a bit, and after a small struggle, broke into a full smile. "Ripped it into smithereens and threw it in the fire. And Hermione cussed – you know that she's not like that." Harry stared off into the window a few yards away in awe. "You get to see the sky." Once again, it was not a question. It was an acknowledgement, and a sad one at that.

"Yes." I searched for words. "Why? Don't you?" He shook his head.

"Not anymore. I used to, when I was with the Longbottoms and Lockhart. But I don't like to see the moon anymore." He ended in a whisper. "I don't want to know when he has to endure that pain."

"Remus?" I asked for clarification. He didn't respond. He didn't seem to hear me. He just stared out the window with longing.

"I have nightmares now. Real nightmares, not like the one with you in it. I have nightmares about people. I had a nightmare about Sirius the other night. And when I could see the moon, I would have nightmares about Lupin. I had a nightmare about Ron when there was an article about the Chudley Canons in the newspaper. I had a nightmare about Hermione when I saw a _book_. A stupid book made me have a nightmare." He didn't seem to realize I was there until he turned his head and I realized he had been answering my questions. His face was confused and childish, yet more mature than I had ever seen on one so young. "I have nightmares about _everyone_. That's not normal, is it?"

"Well, it is a bit, er, unusual, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing!" I reassured him, but his expression didn't change. His eyes remained wide and questioning.

"Is it a bad thing that they won't let me out during the day?" he asked.

"Why would they do that?" He bit his lip and avoided my question. His smile was long gone by now, though traces seemed to linger.

"When are you going to die? Do you have time? How much?" he choked out.

"Soon. By this time tomorrow, probably."

Harry set his jaw and stared straight at the moon that was shining brilliantly through the window.

"I'm staying," he informed me and took a seat by my bed. I smiled at him warmly and opened my magazine.

"Alright, then! You can help me here… what does a miniwave do? What's the _point_ of it? It has numbers – is it like a fellyphone?" I knew exactly what miniwaves did and was aware that it was nothing like a fellyphone, but I pretended. I wanted to make him smile. I wanted to make him laugh. It worked.

"It's a microwave, Mr. Weasley. And a telephone. A microwave heats things up, like an oven. Do you get that?" he informed me kindly, the same sort of kind he and Hermione had given me when they tried to show me how to put up a tent the previous summer.

"Microwave… hm. I'll have to get one of those. Molly would like it. It's for cooking, right?"

"Yeah. Hey… have the twins played any good pranks recently?" he asked me, eager for information on the outside world.

"Yes. They keep getting these new products from _somewhere_. I'm not sure where, though. It's been driving Molly up the wall."

Harry smiled widely again. He didn't know that I knew that he had funded their inventions and he was glad they were still working.

"They'd be pretty happy with me, I think," he commented after I recalled some of their greatest recent moments. "They didn't like Lockhart, either." I narrowed my eyes at him and was surprised to find his filled with the spark that young children often had.

"What did you do to Gilderoy Lockhart?" I questioned suspiciously. He laughed.

"I didn't give him any damage!" he insisted. "At least not lasting damage."

"What did you do?" I repeated.

"Poured a potion over his head. I told him that it would make his hair shiny. I was just trying to get rid of it." His smile disappeared suddenly. "They had been trying to make me fall asleep. They give it to a lot of patients. I didn't want to take it, though. So I got rid of it every day. I usually made them think I drank it, but once Lockhart was annoying me so much, that I couldn't help it. I got in so much trouble."

"And you don't like falling asleep?" I asked. He shook his head.

"I don't like the nightmares. But then again, does _anybody_?" I chuckled. "No, really," he continued. "Who wants to be terrorized in their sleep for no apparent reason? I know, I know, dreams have meaning, but I never paid any attention in Divination and what could being swallowed by a giant Venus Flytrap mean?"

"Well, it could symbolize – wait, you were what?"

He closed his eyes and shook his head.

"Never mind. It was just a weird dream." Silence fell between us, but it was a comfortable silence. It was the kind of silence found when walking into the freshly fallen snow, alone. It was perfect.

"Do you ever get to leave the building?" I asked Harry suddenly. "Or do you need a relative to take you out?"

"None of my family likes me. They won't take me out. They're hoping I die here."

"That's not true!" I contradicted him. "Have they said that?"

"No, but they sure wouldn't object." He took a deep breath. "Why did you want to know?"

"I was just curious. Do you think that my Molly could take you out?" I asked and he shook his head.

"Only family is allowed. Well, family or guardians. And Sirius is in prison again and my family hates me, so it's a moot point." He frowned. "Did you know that it was my fault?"

"I'm sure it's not your fault that your family hates you," I comforted and laid my hand on top of his gently, squeezing it carefully. He was so fragile, more fragile than even I. His skin was ice cold, even to me, as I shivered towards my death.

"No, not that. Sirius is in prison because of me," he whispered. "He is, I know he is!"

"What are you talking about?" I asked him hurriedly. His mouth turned into a scowl.

"It's my fault they found him. All my fault! And you know what? He wants to see me. He wants to see _me_! He sent in a request, a last request, to see me. They're going to grant it. They said I would feel better about this whole ordeal if I saw him. But I won't, I know I won't! They're going to make me see him as he's rotting away in prison." His voice cracked and he choked off. I swallowed hard.

"Harry, it'll be okay. It will. Everything will be alright. I _promise!_" I clutched his hand tightly and he gripped back harder. I felt lightheaded, tired. My vision was getting blurry, but I felt warm and fuzzy inside, the happiest I had been in a while. Yet, there was the unavoidable sorrow of leaving my family. I knew what was happening. I pressed Harry's letter into his palm and he gasped as he realized what was happening. He pushed his chair aside quickly and knelt onto the ground, shaking.

"No! No, not you, too! Please, no, Mr. Weasley, please. One more night! Just one more!" he begged, but it was no use. I could feel my life slipping away from me now. I squeezed his hand once more before laying back on the pillow and closing my eyes for the last time.

"Goodbye," he murmured and I heard no more.

* * *

People have headlines, too. Some shout out to others. They shout "Look at me! Look at me!" Others are quiet and meek, like the ads in the _Prophet_ by people trying to find dates. That would be the sort of ad I would expect for my death. My obituary would be small, I knew. I wasn't very important, was I? Not rich, not famous – no. I was just a father, and a good one at that.

People have headlines, too, I realized, and I liked to read them. Harry's headline was larger than usual, yet his didn't cry the same message as most. His cried for help, his cried for peace. He didn't want to be looked at and known. He would have preferred a small headline, like my own. It wasn't so bad, in my opinion. My headline was large to those who knew me. I was the kind of headline that a friend or family member would find and blow up so it's even larger than the largest there's ever been.

Headlines are what capture the eye. Harry Potter's certainly caught mine.


End file.
